Professional Couples Only
by Metarie
Summary: Rumor has it the landlady of this particular housing complex is an alien, but the ad said professional couples only, so... really, pretending was the only logical thing to do. Ten/Rose.


_**Disclaimer: Not mine.**_

_**A/N: CHECK THIS OUT GUYS. It's Doctor Who fic! For the second time ever! And for the first time about my favorite pairing in all of forever! Took me long enough. I hope you enjoy it and tell me what you think afterwards!**_

"I really don't think we need to be here," Roses muses.

"You're telling me you don't think we need to investigate someone's claims about an alien landlady?"

"I'm telling you, that guy in the street last night? Was drunk," Rose points out. "He was rambling."

"Well, lots of people ramble," says the Doctor.

"I've noticed," says Rose.

They're standing at the front door. It's old, the whole building is. What was once a colorful, bright spot on the street was now a faded, rickety looking structure with the paint chipping off.

"Seems a bit flashy for an alien," Rose points out.

"Depends on the alien," says the Doctor. He takes out his screwdriver and sonics a few things before putting it away again. Rose waits for him to explain himself, but he doesn't. "Well?" he says. "Shall we knock?"

They're about to but the door opens abruptly before either of them can. Rose jumps about a foot in the air.

"Can I help you?" says the woman, presumably the landlady, who was tall and drawn with a squinched up face that looks annoyed to see them.

"Ah, yes!" says the Doctor, brightly. "We're here about the empty flat?"

The landlady regards them coolly, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. "The ad says professional couples only," she says, blowing smoke in their faces.

This seems to go over the Doctor's head, so Rose steps in. She links her arm inside his and smiles. "Of course," she says. "That's what we are. Very professional. And very… couple-y."

"Yes," the Doctor adds, for effect.

"All right then," says the landlady, opening the door and beckoning them in. "I'm Betsy."

"Hi Betsy," says Rose politely, following her in and dragging the Doctor along with her. "I'm Rose, and this is the Doctor."

"Hello," says the Doctor.

"Doctor of what?"

He pauses. "You can call me John Smith," he says.

Betsy takes a drag of her cigarette. "Whatever," she says.

They get a tour of the flat, and it's nice enough – two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living area, old but well kept, and furnished, thankfully, and Rose has to do all the talking because the Doctor keeps getting into things and semi-discreetly sonicking various objects in the flat.

"Bit eccentric, is he?" Betsy asks, as she and Rose watch the Doctor examine the pipes underneath the sink.

"He's, erm, a plumber," says Rose. "A very dedicated one."

"A plumber doctor?"

"That's… what his business is called," Rose invents wildly. "For all your plumbing needs… call Doctor Plumber."

"Isn't that clever," says Betsy.

"Isn't it just," says Rose, but she can't tell whether she's being laughed at or not.

They sit down for an interview with Betsy, and she asks them about their jobs, and interrogates the Doctor about his plumbing business, which he handles fairly well considering it's the first he's heard of it, and then Rose makes something up about working in a shop, and it's all going perfectly, and then she asks them how long they've been together, and that's when the smiles freeze on their faces, and Rose thinks, _why don't we ever prepare for these things?_

"Five years, eight months, three days," the Doctor says, after a moment.

"Has it really been?" Rose asks, surprised.

"Yes," he says. "Sweet… heart."

Rose wants to laugh when he calls her that, because it sounds much too awkward for a couple who has supposedly been together for five years, eight months, three days. She also wants to blush, and maybe get a little sad, so she settles for clearing her throat and ignoring him.

"Oh how time flies," she says, focusing her most winning smile on Betsy. "So. That's us, then! We really like the flat," she says, pointedly.

"It is a great flat," says Betsy, taking another long drag on her cigarette. She looks them over a few more times, and then she finally makes up her mind. "You can move in tomorrow," she says.

"Oh! Wonderful!" says Rose.

"Can't wait!" says the Doctor, and they're all very genial and excited and generally upbeat about the whole thing.

* * *

"I can't believe we're moving into a flat," says Rose the next afternoon, as she unpacks the suitcase of clothes she brought along. "It's so domestic. Not like we haven't been… you know, living together this whole time, but all the same… feels momentous, somehow…"

"How long do you think we'll have to stay here?" asks the Doctor, poking his head into her room.

"I dunno, it was your idea to do this, wasn't it?" She starts going through the underwear she packed, pulling out a pair of pink knickers and folding them neatly in half. "I guess as long as it takes for you to be satisfied the landlady isn't an alien."

The Doctor is staring at her hands, and it takes Rose a moment to figure out why, and obviously it's because of what she's holding. She awkwardly puts the knickers back into the suitcase and looks at him, waiting for him to catch himself.

He does, just like he always does. He clears his throat. "Could take ages, could take a few hours," he says, almost like nothing happened. He rubs the back of his neck. "Depends… hang on. What did you mean by 'as long as it takes for _me_ to be satisfied she isn't an alien'? Don't you want to know, too?"

Rose rolls her eyes. "I met her yesterday, same as you, and, well, I dunno, I didn't get a very alienish vibe from her. She was a bit weird, I s'pose, but that was it."

The Doctor harrumphs, and then goes back out into the living room.

"Are you putting away the dishes?" she calls after him. When he doesn't answer her she follows him out of her room and nearly falls over when she's confronted with a living room at least three times the size of the one they saw yesterday, complete with a fireplace, a cathedral ceiling and a grand piano. For some reason, there's a spiral staircase in the middle of the room.

"Oh my _god_," she says.

"What do you think?" asks the Doctor, proudly. "Much better, isn't it? It was tiny before. And I mean miniscule."

"Doctor! What if Betsy comes up here? She's going to see this! She'll probably die of shock!"

"Why would she come in here?"

"I don't know, because she's the landlady and she owns it? And has a key?"

The Doctor frowns. "Well… we just won't let her in." He says this as if it's the most obvious solution, and she was an idiot for not coming to the same conclusion.

"Where does that staircase lead to?" she asks.

"Oh! The TARDIS," he says, happily. "I parked her up on the roof and turned on the cloaking device. That way, we don't have to unpack anything!"

"Uh huh," says Rose. She's starting to think the Doctor is missing the point of this exercise.

"What?" he asks. "Don't you like it?"

"It's… a bit much," she says.

"But it's bigger now," he protests. "And there's a piano."

"Neither of us know how to play the piano."

"Looks nice, though, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but…" she trails off, biting her lip. "I sort of thought we were going to try and live like normal people for a while. You know, in a normal sized flat."

"Nah," says the Doctor, dismissively. "Just here to investigate the landlady, not worth settling in… and who wants to be normal, anyhow? Normal is boring. If you want normal, you should've just asked to go back to your mum's."

"Right," says Rose, annoyed. "Well, you can have your giant TARDISy living room to yourself then. I'll just go into my normal, boring bedroom and finish unpacking my things like a normal, boring person living a normal, boring life would." She slams the door behind her.

* * *

What was so wrong with living in a normal flat? Tons of people did it, all the time. The same people the Doctor is constantly raving about being amazing and magnificent and indomitable, and whatever. Rose used to do it, and her mum still did. Just because not every person has access to a magical phone box that can travel through space and time doesn't mean they're boring, or even normal, for that matter.

Rose sits down on her bed and tries to convince herself she's overreacting, because she knows she is, but there's more to it than just his disdain for the ordinary. There's a tiny little part of her – or, maybe not so tiny – that was looking forward to maybe, possibly, actually experiencing life as a normal couple with the Doctor. It would be playing house, obviously, she knew that, it would be sort of silly, because it would never be a reality for them, but… pretending is all she's had for a while. Because she knows how she feels about him, and she's pretty confident about how he feels about her, and those feelings don't exactly meet up where she wants them to.

But she was thinking, maybe, if they lived together, in one place, in a normal flat… well, it was a long shot anyway. She's not even sure he sleeps at all, much less would come in here and sleep with her.

Not that she'd want to sleep in that scenario.

_Oh well,_ she thinks. It's not important, it's not going to happen, he only wanted her around so he'd have someone to listen to his speeches about the unconquerableness of the human spirit. Or whatever.

* * *

Next thing she knows, it's dark – she must have dozed off. She wakes up in a pile of knickers she'd left on the bed. She stretches, trying to decide whether she wants to get up and find the Doctor or just continue sleeping. Yes, in the knickers pile – it didn't faze her.

She hears a knock on the door – the sound of the Doctor deciding for her.

"Rose," he says. "I know you're awake."

Her eyebrows furrow. "How'd you know that?"

"Well… I didn't. That was the third time I tried that. Can I come in?"

Rose bites back a laugh. Oh, Doctor. Her Doctor. Sometimes she just wants to grab him and snog him senseless. Maybe she should – it'd get the message across, at least.

"Yeah, come in," she says, sitting up on her elbows.

The Doctor pushes the door, and it opens slowly. He stands there in the doorway, looking at her like he forgot what he'd been about to tell her.

"Rose," he says, voice cracking a bit. "You've got… all over." He gestures vaguely to the bed.

"Knickers everywhere?"

"Everywhere."

"I know. Hadn't got around to putting them away yet. Probably would be too normal of me."

The Doctor ignores this. "I spent the afternoon investigating the rest of the building," he says. "I didn't find a single alien thing about it. Well, outside of our flat, anyway."

"I wonder why," Rose says, dryly.

"Either Betsy's doing a really, really fantastic job of hiding any alien tech, or… she's not an alien."

"Or," says Rose. "She's an alien who isn't doing anything wrong and is just managing an old, rundown housing complex."

"Or that," admits the Doctor. He comes and sits on the edge of the bed, hands shoved into his pockets. There's a pair of black and white lace knickers right next to him, and he's staring at them. After a moment's consideration, he picks them up and examines them.

"Are these… comfortable?"

"Those aren't really… meant to be comfortable," says Rose, feeling awkward. "They're more for, um, show." _And I haven't used them in a while, hint hint,_ she almost adds.

"What's the point of them, then? If they're just for show?"

"What?"

"Well, they just go under your clothes, right?"

"Are you being thick on purpose right now?" She genuinely can't tell, but it has to be a joke. There is no way he is actually that stupid when it comes to these things. But then again… this is the Doctor, so who knows.

Either way, he seems affronted at being called thick. "It was just a question!"

"They're lingerie, Doctor. You know what that is, right?"

He stares at her, and then back at the knickers, and then back at her again. "But lingerie is for…" He trails off.

"Yeah," says Rose. "For sex."

"But Rose, when do you have time for that? Who are you… doing that with? Your little boyfriends you seem to meet everywhere?" Suddenly he seems upset. "You haven't been having any gentlemen callers over to the TARDIS, have you?"

"God, no," says Rose, sitting up finally. "Blokes in the TARDIS? Of course not! How am I s'posed to explain that to some one night stand? 'Hi, let's go have sex in my magic box'?

"I don't presume to know what you tell them," the Doctor says, huffily.

"And what boyfriends are you talking about, anyway? Adam? Or Mickey? Because they were both ages ago, by now."

The Doctor purses his lips. "Jack counts," he says, surprising her a little by bringing him up. He never did.

"Jack wanted to be your boyfriend as much as he wanted to be mine."

"Well, all right," the Doctor says. "I'll give you that, but if all that's true, then why do you have showy knickers lying around?"

For some reason she'd been managing not to blush throughout this entire conversation, a fact Rose is inordinately proud of, but now she feels her face getting hot and she can't really think of a good answer, even though she knows exactly what it is. "Just leave it," she mumbles, snatching the knickers out of his hand and getting off the bed.

"Rose - !"

"No, just forget it, all right? It doesn't matter."

"Well, fine, if you don't want to tell me – "

"I brought them for you," she blurts out, and then immediately looks away, supremely embarrassed. This was it, then. This is when he would go back to acting all patronizing and Sex Is For Humans Not Timelords, and tell her she needed to get over it or get taken home, because nothing would happen between them, because he just wanted her around to be his friend, and if she didn't see him like that, well, then there just wasn't any future for them anymore –

"Oh," says the Doctor. He puts the knickers carefully back down on the bed and then stands up, shoving his hands back in his pockets like they are foreign entities attached to the end of his arms, strange things he has no idea of their origin or what he should be doing with them.

Rose waits for him to say something else, but he doesn't. It's awkward. "'Oh'?" she says. "I tell you I bought these lacy knickers to wear for you and all you have to say is 'oh'?"

He shrugs, somehow at a loss for words, a phenomenon Rose never thought she'd live to see. "I don't think I know what you want me to say right now."

"Well, I thought you were going to get mad," Rose says, trailing off. "And take me home, or something."

"Hadn't even occurred to me."

"Did anything occur to you?"

"Several things, actually," he admits.

"What does that mean?"

The Doctor swallows. _Is he nervous?_ Rose wonders. _I'm making him nervous._

"It means… I don't mind, that you bought those."

A thrill runs down Rose's spine, and confidence returns to her in an exhilarating rush. "Oh," she says. "Well, then."

"Well then indeed," says the Doctor.

The steps she takes towards him are tentative, but she stops only when she's standing right in front of him, so close she can hear how uneven his breath is. "So you don't mind that I fancy you," she says, meeting his eyes, which are getting darker by the second.

"No," he says quietly.

"Did you know that I did?"

"I hoped," he said, after a moment.

This is all the encouragement she needs. Rose kisses him, soundly, and when he kisses her back it's like coming home, the completion of something magical, and inside she's laughing, overwhelmed, overjoyed.

They fall back on the bed, hands everywhere all over, tearing at each other's clothing, and it's not enough, can never be enough.

* * *

Rose is lying on her back with the Doctor still draped all over her. She has no desire to move, ever. It would be so easy to die right now, happy and naked like this. Some part of her still believes she has.

She's about to drift off into sleepy oblivion when she hears the Doctor say something.

"Mmm?" she says, weaving her fingers in through his magnificent hair.

"The landlady."

"What about her?"

"I think you're right. She's probably not an alien."

"What changed your mind?"

"Eh… just have a feeling about it. I am an expert on aliens, after all."

"So we can move back in to the TARDIS?"

"Well, there's no hurry," he says. "We can stay here as long as you like."

"Shame," says Rose. "I left my red satin teddy in my other closet."

"I'll help you pack," the Doctor says, jumping up.

They stuff things into her suitcase and are back in the TARDIS in five minutes flat.

* * *

"The noise that infernal machine makes," Betsy mumbles to herself, listening at the door. "Could wake the whole of creation. Still, least they're gone."

She trudges back to the safety of her own barren, empty flat, where she immediately turns off her perception filter and slithers back into the sink.


End file.
